I can see certification backed training being used as a prerequisite to move within a company, either laterally or for promotions. It makes sense to ensure that an employee has a certain base knowledge prior to moving into a new position. Studying for and passing a certification test accomplishes that. (Note: I am saying base knowledge, further training may be required.)

Using certifications for hiring is pure nonsense. There are too many unknowns when hiring a person, and how seriously they took the certification process is certainly one of them. How well they retain information that they may have acquired over a short period of time is another factor that cannot be tested. Whether they are able to acquire new skills and troubleshoot new situations is certainly a huge consideration that is difficult to test. That is all stuff that you actually need to know in order to know if the certification has value. That is all stuff you can assess with employees who are moving within the company, yet cannot adequately assess with people who are coming into the company.

No. They meant a Pentium II with 640 kB of RAM: they never figured out how to used memory managers to access the other 31 MB of RAM that's actually installed.

I have one computer that just receives updates, but it is running a Linux distribution that mostly delivers bug and security patches rather than upgrading the software or changing the user interface. While it isn't my production computer per se, it is the machine that I expect to be reliable.

The rest of my computers and devices receive updates and upgrades as often as I feel like, which is frequently these days. Nightlies and betas are usually stable enough if you avoid the first few rounds. It is also fun to see how the technology is developing, even if I usually see the changes as frivolous or counter productive.

One thing that I don't go hog-wild on updating though is application software. It is far too easy to get data locked into a format that is incompatible with earlier releases, which is a time sink if things do go wrong and I do have to back up to a prior version. Operating systems aren't as much of a concern on this front since they just provide services to applications.

I'm not a huge fan of mandated updates, and this will probably bite Microsoft in the behind if any of those updates make noticeable changes to the end user, but it is probably for the best over all.

The typical argument that I hear is that updates break things. This is undoubtedly true, but how often does it actually happen (proportionally speaking)? If it doesn't happen very often, then the benefits carried by security updates will outweigh the inconvenience.

Some people will claim that they like reviewing updates or backing out of updates that cause problems. For the Slashdot crowd, this is probably true. For the average user though, I have to question the validity of that argument. Now I will take a quick glance at the updates performed on my Linux installation. On Windows, I gave up. Microsoft makes it incredibly inconvenient to do this, since most updates require clicking through to a KB article for anything beyond a generic description (and by generic, I mean that it doesn't even tell you what part of the system is being updated). Couple that with the large number of updates, and it is rarely even worth while to conduct a cursory review. And that is from the perspective of a technically oriented user. Similarly for backing out of updates: how many users even have the ability to isolate an update as the cause of a problem? Even for technical users, it is usually just correlating an update with the onset of a problem with no technical reason to back that hypothesis.

Ideally, Microsoft would say security updates are mandatory and anything else (including bug fixes) are optional. Realistically, I don't think Microsoft's going to do that. They have too much riding upon appearing progressive, which is hard to do when users consistently refuse to update their products. Forced updates may be a nasty way to change that perception, and has a good chance of backfiring, but to them it is probably better than the status quo.

Commodore, as a company, has not existed for a very, very long time. This is simply the product of companies buying or licensing the trademarks. And no, it isn't meant as a business for the long term. It's simply cashing in on the trademark's nostalgic value while it still has some value.

As an aside, this isn't the first Commodore phone. If I recall correctly, they were selling office equipment before they were a computer manufacturer. One of their products was a rotary phone.

I would use transit in this city a bit more if it was free, but not much. That's because the problem isn't cost. Rather, it is a combination of cost and service with service being the biggest factor. Service is so poor that it is faster to walk 30 minutes than it is to take a bus, and that is assuming that you don't have to be at your destination at a particular time. If you need to be at a particular place at a particular time, it is usually faster to walk to places up to 60 minutes away.

Then you have to consider the comfort factor. I don't mind waiting at bus stops, but virtually none of the stops in this city have seating and very few have shelters. That wouldn't be so bad if busses actually ran on schedule, but the typical bus runs anywhere from 5 minutes ahead of schedule to 10 minutes behind schedule. Once you're on the bus, there is a good chance that you'll discover that it is a cattle car (i.e. inward facing seats rather than front facing seats to maximize standing room). In the dead of winter, there is also a good chance that the bus driver cranked up the heat in spite of the passengers over heating in their winter attire. Of course, you can also expect motion sickness because there is a good chance that the driver doesn't know how to drive.

Don't get me wrong: I love public transit. I love it in cities where it is designed with the passengers in mind. It can be fast and comfortable. But until my current home city learns how to do so, I will simply take my bike. Even in the rain. Even throughout most of the winter.

Ignoring advertising in general, and looking at the advertising of jobs in particular, it is best to avoid some demographic data like the plague. That doesn't mean that you have to avoid demographic data in general. It doesn't mean that you have to avoid demographic data that may skew towards one gender, because there is precious little that you can do about preexisting social biases.

To give you examples of what I mean: advertising employment based upon gender or to groups that are based upon gender is discriminatory. Advertising on sites with a readership that reflects a company's needs and is open regardless of gender is fair game, even if social biases leads to a gender imbalance. (Like I said, there is precious little that you can do about those preexisting social biases.)

Look, I'm not saying that you're going to get a perfect split that reflects the population. There are many reasons why people are swayed in one direction rather than the other. On the other hand, it is unjust to lock people out simply because they belong to a certain demographic. It is also unjust to reenforce the social pressures that will push people in one direction rather than another.

The issue is applying the stereotypes to individuals, rather than how well they fit a population.

If a woman loses out on an employment opportunity because the social norm is for women to place family before work, that fits into the categories of prejudice and discrimination. It fails to take the individual into account, which is a problem since any given woman may be more than happy to place a higher priority on her career. If a woman loses out on an employment opportunity because she openly admits that her family takes priority over work, that is because her interests do not reflect those of the potential employer. Whether she fits the stereotype or not is a moot point.

It will give the taxi companies less of a leg to stand on, which may be sufficient. As for city regulators, I would imagine that it depends upon the city. Some cities would be enthusiastic to get cars off of the roads since this incurs an expense (either through increased maintainence or building more capacity).

The tricky part is will this type of ride sharing provide enough service to be viable. It may work out for people commuting to work during peak hours. It probably won't work out for people who need to commute outside of peak hours or who are looking for service for other purposes.

I'm installing Windows 10 right now, just so that we can watch Microsoft's empire crumble ...

If you're only claim to being an advanced user is your ability to customize your system, then you aren't an advanced user. You're just a person who wastes their time customizing their software, and who will waste even more time trying to figure out how to use the default configuration on other people's systems.

People who actually know how to use their software, even if it is to better organize their music collection, have a better claim to being an advanced user. Personally, I'd set the bar a fair bit higher than that. On the other hand, at least they are actually using their knowledge to do something productive.

Did you drink a bit too much of the kool-aid? Cuba may not be a free nation, yet there are far worse nations that still allow access to the Internet. Monitored and censored, sure. Yet that hardly means that they don't allow data onto the "fibre". They still want data that serves the interest of the state. For the most part, they don't care about data that isn't a threat to the state.

Yes, and replace them with modern power supplies before they fail. Power supplies rarely fail in a clean manner, which is to say that they will still provide power even if it is not functioning properly. The voltage may be too high or too low or, in the case of dried out capacitors, fluctuate. In most cases the computer will behave irratically, yet there are also cases where it can end up damaging other components. So just take the preemptive measure of replacing the power supplies to ensure that the critical components, the ones that are hard to replace, will have a lower chance for failure.

Unless you are one of those people who passionately hated the Start Screen, it probably doesn't fix many of the things you don't like about it. Judging from the discussions about it, Microsoft has done very little outside of improving the integration between the Modern UI and the traditional desktop. Yet it is still a schisophrenic UI (which is easily bumped into when you try configuring yours system, as one example) and Microsoft is still pushing their online services.

If you're talking about a condition that will not become progressively worse if left untreated, then sure, go for a placebo. If you're looking for a cure because you're paranoid of conventional methods, either because you don't trust the motives of pharmaceutical companies or are scared of the side-effects, for a condition that will deteriorate if left untreated -- well, let's just say that is downright foolish.